Right Up Over the Wire
by arianna99
Summary: Sam reacts negatively to Dean's relationship with Castiel; before he can convince Sam it's okay, Dean has to accept his proclivities himself. An exploration of Dean's sexuality. Sensitive subject matter, past Dean/OMCs, Dean/Castiel, Sam isn't very nice.


**Title:** Right Up Over the Wire  
**Author:** arianna99  
**Fandom:** Supernatural  
**Pairing/characters:** Dean, Sam, Castiel; Dean/Castiel, past Dean/OMCs  
**Rating:** R  
**Disclaimer:** Belongs to Kripke and the CW  
**Prompt/Summary:** For the **lgbtfest** . Prompt 3265. Supernatural, Dean/Castiel, when Sam finds out about them he's convinced that Dean's possessed/bespelled/being controlled by some supernatural force, and Dean has to come to terms with the fact that yeah, he is actually kinda into guys, before he's able to make Sam believe he's still himself.  
**Warnings: ** Sensitive subject matter. Any mistakes/misrepresentations are unintentional and not meant to insult. OMCs, and Sam is not very nice for understandable reasons. Vague S5 spoilers, none for finale-related stuff, though.

By the time Castiel deems it safe enough to return, Sam has left and Dean is alone, cleaning his guns in a silent, if worryingly murderous rage.

"Dean," Cas says.

Dean has no answer, so Cas sits down on the bed not covered in weapons. He feels strange and a bit awkward – usually, Dean isn't this upset, he tends to have the time and patience to help Cas understand what's going on.

Then again, usually, his brother doesn't catch them trading oral sex in the back seat of the Impala.

Castiel is not human, it's true, and he finds emotions overwhelming and confusing at best, but he does know humanity has strange ideas about homosexuality, indeed about all forms of sex.

Having experienced it himself, he willingly admits that sex makes people stupid, high on endorphins or deep in emotions or a strange mix-up of the two that causes more harm than good sometimes. However, Castiel himself, or so he likes to think, is not yet completely human-stupid. He certainly isn't only sleeping with Dean because he likes the orgasms, though if asked, he's not going to deny that he does.

And Dean…well, he's not always a poster child for good decision-making, but Cas knows that can both feel the rightness between them. In a word, he's painfully, perfectly in love with Dean, and Dean has said it's mutual more than once.

Sam Winchester is smart. Sensible, usually, exceptions involving demon blood notwithstanding. Castiel had thought, despite Dean's eyes going wide with fear at Sam's shocked expression when he found them in the Impala, half naked, flushed and sweating, that whatever would happen couldn't be too bad. The bond between the Winchester brothers was too great for a weak human concept like sexual orientation to get in the way.

Apparently, he was wrong.

"He threw salt at me," Dean says, when he'd put the revolver he was cleaning back together. "And he tried to exorcize me, and he cut me with Ruby's knife."

"He thought you were possessed?" Cas asks.

"Apparently," Dean says. "I mean, fuck, I thought he knew me better than that." Dean sighs, wipes his hands on a towel and flops down on his back on the bed Castiel is sitting on. Cas slides out of his coat, out of his jacket and his shoes and socks and tie. He likes the slow reveal of skin humans go through when they get undressed.

He curls up next to Dean, head pillowed on Dean's chest. He finds he enjoys the sound of Dean's voice even more when he can feel the words as well as hear them.

"Sam loves you," Cas says, loving the slow creep of Dean's arms to fit around him. "I can't imagine he would give up on you simply for not being heterosexual."

Dean tenses next to him. "Who says I'm not?" he asks, affronted.

Cas is having none of it, though. He's not blind to the way Dean will rub up towards the stubble on his cheeks, the way he lets himself go in Cas's arms because he feels safer that way, with hard planes and muscles he can rely on and doesn't need to protect. He's certainly noticed how much Dean loves his penis.

"Yeah, okay," Dean sighs, relaxing again. "But Sammy doesn't know that. I…I never knew that, till you."

"Yes, you did," Cas says, calmly. Some things he knows without being human. Rome was not built in a day. No one is as good as Dean is at blowjobs without practice.

"It's complicated," Dean says.

"Explain it," Cas says.

**Defiance, Ohio, 1993**

It's a warm spring, and Dean's just turned thirteen.

Sam thinks it's stupid. Sure, Dean blushes a lot, and it's fun to tease him about girls and how long he spends in the bathroom, but he spends less time with Sam and more with his friends. He looks at girls for too long and stares at Cindy the waitress's boobs where they rise up over the top of her low-cut shirt.

Dean's never really had friends who aren't Sam before. It makes Sam jealous and a bit lonely. Dad's off hunting (again), and with Dean over at stupid Sean's, Sam's bored and neglected.

He starts putting more effort into his homework, and he's surprised to discover both he and his teachers enjoy it. His hair is almost long enough to cover his eyes, because usually, it's Dean who cuts it.

"I'm going to Sean's," Dean tells over a dinner of leftover meatloaf and heated-up spaghetti-o's.

Sam just says, "Mm."

Dean would call him a girl if he said he missed him.

Sam spends his evening watching the discovery channel while he painstakingly slogs his way through long division. Fourth grade math _sucks_.

"It'd be easier if you turned the TV off, Sammy," Sam says, as he closes the door behind himself.

"Dean!" Sam says, looking up. He can't help the beaming smile that spreads all over his face. "Why're you back?"

Dean shrugs, dumps his jacket on a chair. "He wanted me to go on a double date with him, his girlfriend and her friend."

"Didn't you want to…" Sam stops. He's not really sure what Dean _wants to_ with girls.

"Dude," Dean says. "They wanted to go see some dumb chick flick and talk about their feelings. I look gay?"

Sam laughs, even though he thinks there's something weird about Dean saying that. But Sam's certainly not complaining when Dean helps him understand his math problems, or when Dean watches Cartoon Network with him even though there's no way it's as cool as a grown-up movie.

When Dean eyes his bangs skeptically, though, and says, "We oughta get your hair cut," Sam says, "I kinda like it this way."

Just…because.

"I guess I was thirteen," Dean says. "His name was Sean…something. Damn, I forgot his last name. Anyway. It was the first time I had real friend, y'know?"

"Yes," Cas answers. "I know." And he does, because Dean was his first friend.

"I dunno," Dean says, "I didn't really realize I liked him _like that_ until later. I just…he had a girlfriend, like you have girlfriends when you're  
thirteen. And I got jealous. And then I we left. And I thought I just missed having a friend I could talk to who wasn't Sam. But then…"

Dean sighs, stretches the arm that's not around Castiel up so he can rest his head on it.

"Then?" Cas prompts.

"Then…" Dean trails off. "I dunno. Then things started changing and later…" he angles his head so he's looking at Castiel. "Sean kept trying to find out where my parents were, and why I did all the shopping and cooking and why we moved around so much. I think he thought dad was abusive or something. Normally, I'd'a punched him for that, but he was just worried. Thought he could help me. And he never asked outright."

Dean, Cas has often thought, can accept help best when it's not offered. When it's just given with no preamble and no fuss. It's why he gets along with Bobby so well. Bobby avoids emotional scenes at all costs, because as little as he likes to admit it, more often than not, they move him to tears.

Dean doesn't like showing weakness, but he likes responsibility just as little because he's so afraid of getting things wrong.  
It sounds to Cas like Sean understood that much.

"I liked him," Dean admits quietly after a bit, and while Castiel does think that was fairly obvious, he also knows it's the first time Dean could ever admit something like that out loud. The first time he could give Sean the credit he deserved for his short but pivotal interlude in Dean's biography.

**Orange, Massachusetts, 1996**

Dean's always been fairly popular, maybe because of the devil-may-care attitude, maybe because of the way he has of understanding people just a bit too well, and maybe because his vulnerability is simultaneously so well-concealed and so fucking obvious it just raises mothering instincts in everyone.

Whichever you pick, once he turns sixteen and gets the Impala, his already noticeable popularity jumps up yet further. His virginity is history – that vanished a year and a half ago in Yuma, Colorado, with Rita Lewis, a tough-as-nails and gorgeous-as-hell gal who took none of Dean's crap.

Dean misses her, sometimes. She had a way of stroking a hand along the back of his neck, that…

But fuck. Dean keeps a box in his duffel, and it has the little sheet of scores he and Sean got in a bowling alley once, tucked neatly under a few notes Rita passed him in class. It's enough. He thinks.

The Impala gets him a lot of good deals. Girls who wear their skirts too short and their eyeliner too heavy don't mind fucking in the back seat, and Dean kind of likes to take the good girls for rides, too, even if they don't want more than some necking, just because he knows they'll feel naughty.

Since Rita, though, he hasn't really found anyone worth more time and effort than a once-off. No one he could talk to, girly as it is.  
Sometimes all he can feel is responsibility.

It's his car, though, and they're taking a risk on getting in with him. It's almost too easy to drown in the protector role, because he knows the kind of girls who spread their legs for him and claw at the upholstery are on a fast track to nowhere, with daddies who're never there or, even worse, daddies who'd do better to never be there, and dreams they'll never be able to fulfill.

Because someone's got to take care of Sammy and make sure he's got clothes and food and shit, because Dad trusts him to. Because Dad trusts him, more and more, because Dad's taking him on hunts and letting him take care of the guns.

He has this one friend, though.

James, but everyone calls him Jim. Jim's in his Spanish class, and he's wicked good with the accent. He plays basketball, and he and Dean like hanging out sometimes.

Jim doesn't let Dean get away with anything.

He frowns when Dean talks about fucking girls, and when he jokes about what all has been on the Impala's seats, he's only half kidding. He meets Sammy, and they get along like a house on fire.

Dean hardly knows why they're friends.

Jim's about a thousand times better than him.

They drink a few beers one night, when Dad's out and Sammy's sleeping over at a pre-approved friend's house, and Dean says as much.  
Jim takes a big swig.

"I like you, Winchester," he says. "But I'm scared you're gonna take everything you got going for you and figure some reason you don't deserve it. You need someone to take care of you." Jim's the kind of guy who's big and tall enough to get away with saying the girliest shit.

"And that's you?" Dean asks, cocky and skeptical. He's been taking care of himself and Sam since he was four.

"Hell yeah," Jim says, and kisses Dean.

They kiss all evening, just kissing for the heck of kissing, and Dean's scared of how much he likes it.

Next morning, Dad comes back and gives them orders to pack up and leave. The receipts from when Dean and Jim went to drink coffee at one of those stupid fancy coffee houses joins the other stuff in Dean's box.

When Sam asks him, with all the superiority and whininess of a twelve-year-old who thinks he knows everything, whether he's going to call Jim, Dean snaps, "No."

"Why not?" Sam asks.

"Dude's a fuckin' fag," Dean says, because it's the only reason he can think of beyond that he's scared out of his mind of what it felt like when Jim wrapped him up in his arms and made him feel like his insides were simultaneously sending off Fourth-of-July fireworks and melting like ice cream in a Texas summer. He thinks it'll do. Sam'll buy it, at least, and Dad's never said either way, but he's a marine and Dean may want that feeling back just as much as he's scared of it, but he's never wanted to disappoint Dad, ever.

Sam snorts, mutters something like "homophobe", and goes back to reading _The Outsiders_ for what has to be the ten millionth time.

Anyway, he gets over it soon enough and starts complaining about Dean's music selection and calling him "Sodapop", and he never asks about Jim again.

"Don't you think…that is why Sam thinks you can't be homosexual?" Cas asks,

"Dude, I'm not a fucking fag."

"I never said you were," Cas says.

"Just 'cause we're fucking – "

Cas gives him a stern look that means as much as, _and there you were doing so well. I'm disappointed_.

"You know I don't mean it like that," Dean says. "It's just…"

"Just?"

"I thought Sam would know me better than this."

Cas presses a kiss right above Dean's heart.

"He can only know what you've let him know," he points out, and Dean supposes he's right. Sam has a tendency of stubbornly only seeing what's there and nothing else.

**Erath, Louisiana, 1997**

Dean drops out of high school just a few credits short of graduation. It's one of the few mistakes in his life he doesn't make for Dad or Sam.

Predictably, there's a guy involved. His name's Raj, and he's a bad idea from start to finish. Dean has a lot of those.

Sam is thirteen, and he's possibly even angrier than Dad. It doesn't matter either way – they spend the summer after at Pastor Jim's and Dean gets his stupid GED, so they should just all shut up.

He's pretty sure it was worth it, in its own way.

Raj is just a bit taller than Dean. His hair and eyes are dark; his teeth are white. His cheekbones are just high enough to be almost effeminate, but his well-muscled body makes up for that. He's a very pretty guy, and coming from Dean, who sees himself in the mirror every day, that means a lot.

Over the last year, Dean's been slowly attempting to understand his own sexuality. Raj is a good catalyst.

Raj is also a disaster wrapped in a train wreck with a generous heaping of manipulation on top.

Dean really should know better, but he's a sucker for a pretty smile hiding a sad heart and he's too used to giving up too much of himself too easily for this not to end the way it does.

He and Raj ditch class the entire second half of senior year, in essence. Dean's never really cared about graduation anyway – who needs a real diploma when you can get a forgery much easier? More importantly, who needs a real diploma when you know the only job you're going to do is one you don't need any fucking credentials for?

Raj gets that much.

Raj's parents don't care either way. They're never there, and Raj is what Social Services call 'problematic'. He drinks too much, smokes a lot of weird shit, and his back-up plan for when (not if) he gets disowned is going to LA and getting into showbiz.

Face like his, Dean almost believes he could.

Anyway, Dad's gone most of the time, and he's never cared all that much about Dean's school stuff. He had a brief spout, around when Sam started getting straight A's, but he hasn't given a crap in the last three years or so. Dean's not too worried.

Raj is the first guy to ever do more than kiss Dean.

To be completely honest, Dean doesn't even know what it is. He's been forced to accept that he likes guys as well as girls, sometimes, but he hasn't ever really made an emotional connection like this before.

Not that he and Raj are emotional or some shit like that. It's just that they both get it, in a weird way, and even though Dean knows the entire four months that Raj is the worst idea he's ever had, he feels safe with Raj.

Dean's not really sure where this comes from. There's probably some complicated explanation involving Freud – he knows Raj can take care of himself in most cases, and he knows Raj has roughly the same safekeeping instincts in regard to the few people he keeps close as Dean does. He knows he doesn't have to worry as much about the responsibility because he doesn't feel responsible for Raj. He gets, vaguely, how Raj ticks.

It's not that Dean doesn't like girls. He loves girls. It's just that right now, he likes Raj more, and he doesn't really give a crap about why or how.

Anyway.

Raj only ever calls him "Winchester", but Dean knows it's more an endearment than a way of expressing unfamiliarity. He just calls Raj "Raj". Everyone calls Raj "Raj".

He lets Raj ride shotgun in the Impala (but only when neither Sammy nor Dad can see) all around the town, nights and weekends, so long as Dean knows Sam's taken care of, and they hang around Raj's place during school hours, smoking joints and watching reruns of crappy sitcoms.

It's not Dean's thing at all.

Dean's people-smart, though. He knows exactly what that look means that Raj shoots him sideways, the first few times they meet up, and from there it's a short step to lying flat on his back with his fingers in Raj's hair and Raj's mouth around his dick.

So Dean's been confused about this for a while, now, because it's not what people do, not people he knows. Not Dad or Bobby or Caleb or Pastor Jim or anyone, really.

But Raj will sort of look at him sideways, and offer him another joint, and tell him about LA, and Dean will just fall for it.

Raj is kind of selfish. He takes things.

He's going to leave, someday.

He pouts and won't talk to Dean when Dean picks his family over Raj.

Dean's not stupid, but he is seventeen and a little bit in love with a landmine.

He's not exactly the first, or the last, so he's not too worried.

In the end, he has four months with his living landmine, four months full of the down-low and quiet hand jobs and blow jobs just out of sight and kisses and skipping school and getting high and getting drunk and being a normal screwed-up teenager with another guy.

So, yeah, Dean's a bit in love, but he knows they'll leave in the end, so it's okay.

This, of course, doesn't prepare him for the wrath of John Winchester when he finds out Dean's a) dropped high school, and b) taking recreational drugs.

The inevitable blow-up gets him stuck at Pastor Jim's all summer (which Sam, the freak, loves, because he gets all his reading done) getting his GED and being excluded from all hunts.

On the inside, Dean's actually pretty numb about it, though he argues and yells. There's some part of him that has an insane urge to go up to his father and yell "I'm gay, dad!" and just give up on the girls thing forever, because he doesn't miss long hair and breasts half as much as he misses Raj's occasional stubble, but he's not stupid, he knows what the bible says about shit like that, and he knows what Dad said about that case with the lesbians in Montana.

Anyway. He's not gay. He's just…curious.

Sam comes back late, smelling like alcohol and sweat. He snorts derisively at the sight of Dean and Cas curled up in each other, talking quietly, and when Dean gets up to confront him, he draws out his gun and says, "Don't fucking come closer."

"Sam," Dean says, throat clenching.

"Don't 'Sam' me. You're not my brother."

Dean's shoulders slump, and Cas wishes to provide comfort any way he can, but he knows this is the wrong time.

"My brother," Sam slurs, "is a frigging homophobe. My brother's into women. My brother isn't…no."

"Sam," Dean says again. "Let me explain."

"Explain what?" Sam snarls. "Dean and Castiel, sittin' in a tree, F-U-C-K-I-N-G?"

Sammy's always been a difficult drunk.

"Fuck this," he says. "I'mma sleep in the car."

He makes a grab for his duffel and gets Dean's instead, but Dean doesn't stop him storming out with it.

"Dean," Cas says quietly.

"Hm?" Dean asks.

"What you have told me thusfar wouldn't prompt…"

"That," Dean agrees. "I know."

**Salmon, Idaho, 2000**

By the time he's twenty, Dean knows he can't help the guys thing. It's hardwired into him somehow. He doesn't do it on purpose, and God only knows he has his fair share of women, but he's more than a sucker for a well-muscled guy smiling slyly in his direction; he's downright gone. He wonders if it should worry him that his little box of memories has more than twice as many keepsakes from guys as it does from girls, because that really bumps him up on the Kinsey scale in his opinion (he can research, no matter what Sam seems to think), especially because, thinking back, every one of those few women who meant something was somehow…dominant, not masculine, but angry if he ever assumed she couldn't take care of herself.

Dean's sometimes more self-aware than he wants to be.

He's not gay, though. He's always known that much. He's just not. He's been in San Francisco, once, and the gay scene did nothing for him. Dean's not a big city person, and that's where you find most gay-friendly establishments. Dean's a small town, smoky bar, classic rock and classic car person – who just happens to like guys.

And really, it's not that big a deal most of the time. He likes girls enough, physically, to not arouse anyone's suspicions. It's just that the idea of a long-term relationship with a girl makes him completely freak out. With a guy…well, heck, he's done four months. He's just more comfortable with guys, is all, but it doesn't matter anyway because Dean's not settling down anytime soon.

By this time Sam is sixteen, and he thinks he knows absolutely everything.

Not consciously, certainly, but he thinks he's figured out why he and Dean are so different. He thinks Dean just doesn't connect with people. Not the way Sam does. He thinks Dean doesn't make friends, he meets shady guys in pool halls and gambling joints and hits it off with them for however long they're wherever they are; he fucks sluts in alleys and cars; he takes the whole One True Calling to Hunt thing way too seriously.

Sam, on the other hand, desperately reaches out to make connections wherever they are. He dated his first girlfriend for a month before he even tried to move to third base. His friends are the geeks who'll end up working for Microsoft or the government; they talk about things, important things.

They don't get drunk and cheat each other out of money.

Dean's got a lot of acquaintances, but not many friends, and Sam doesn't envy him at all.

If Dean knew Sam thought that, he…well, he sure as hell wouldn't cry, but he'd be pretty pissed.

The thing is, Sam doesn't know what it's like to be Dean. Sam sometimes lacks that one little starburst of empathy he'd need to really understand Dean. Because Dean makes connections, he just doesn't maintain them, because he knows that if he ever deluded himself into believing something could last, the way they live, all over and never one place for long, would kill him. And it's true, he's not like Sam, making friends and talking about his feelings. It's just not him.

Sam finds the people living in his world. The world of people who want to grow up to be something, who want to be normal. Who view the world as a treasure chest, who feel like marriage and kids and a house in the suburbs is good.

Dean's just not like that. He's drawn to people like himself; people who tightrope-walk between who they are and who they think they should be, people who have dark corners and don't sleep well at night. And people like them…they don't connect like Sam and his friends. They don't talk, not necessarily, and they don't need words like 'forever' or 'I do' to make it mean something.

In Salmon, the scant two weeks they stay there, Dean meets a guy called Steve in a smoky bar one night. There's an ancient, beaten-up jukebox, but Steve's got a guitar that appeases to the people there, so no one bothers. And afterwards, when Dean's cleared a few guys out of their money on the pool table, Steve sidles up next to him and buys him a drink.

Steve has broad, good-natured features, ratty jeans, and a pack of cigarettes in his pocket. He's a nice guy, but he has more than his fair share of issues, as do they all. "Saw you watchin' me," he says to Dean, and Dean's always been a sucker for a nice backwater twang.

Dean takes a fortifying swig of his beer and says, "You were damn hot."

Places like these, you're basically guaranteed one of two answers: A fist in your face or the night of your life.

Looks to Dean like he's very much going to get the latter, though – Steve grins, lazy and slow, and says, "Well, if ya feel like that, ya wanna come back to my place?" His voice is rough and lazy and Dean damn near melts.

"Don't have to ask me twice," he says, and they leave.

Steve's place is like a shoebox, only with thinner walls, but it's not half bad in ways that make Dean's heart ache a little. Steve's hands are rough and calloused on Dean's body and the subtle clenching of his abs when Dean's index finger brushes an old scar tells Dean more than he could hope to learn by talking it out like Sam would. They're just different like that.

When Dean gets up to leave later ("I gotta take care of my little brother," he says, and Steve nods), Steve notices the way his eyes linger on his guitar, and he says, "If you wanna come over again sometime, I could teach you?"

And Dean grins and programs his number into Steve's phone.

It turns out he and Steve share a few proclivities when it comes to music (and sex). By the time they leave Salmon, Dean has a hickey on his hip and he can play _More Than A Feeling_, badly. He and Steve kiss goodbye for long minutes on his doorstep, and Dean puts the sheet music that says _Boston_ in big black letters in his box of memories with a curious mix of sadness and affection.

They're staying in a motel at the border from Idaho to Nevada when the TV blasts out news of a gay bashing in Salmon and Dean knows before he even hears the name with a sick certainty that it was Steve. Shouldn't have kissed where anyone could see.

He never deletes Steve's number from his phone, and his thumb rests on it all evening, but he never presses the call button.

Sam's railing about homophobia and institutionalized hate and the twenty-first century, and when he turns to Dean and asks, "Don't you care?" Dean says, "No," and only later considers that that may have given the wrong impression.

What Dean only realizes after a long night of not sleeping in Cas's arms is that Sam overheard more of their conversation than he'd thought.  
Enough to have taken the memory box out of Dean's duffel.

When Cas and Dean come out to the Impala – by unspoken agreement, Cas is staying with Dean, because he knows how difficult this is for Dean – he's flicking through the papers, studying them with a wrinkle on his unusually large forehead.

Castiel is not in much of a mood to be kind to Sam.

He made Dean upset.

The Winchesters don't really speak much all morning, and Castiel doesn't dare interrupt the silence, however much he's tempted to pull on Sam's hair until he surrenders and apologizes.

But they don't talk.

Sam clutches Dean's box of memories all morning, though.

Finally, around eleven, with the springtime morning sun shining in, Dean says, "There's more I didn't tell you about, Cas."

**Lincoln, Nebraska, 2003**

Dean is twenty-three the first time he gets into something even Sam would describe as a long-term relationship.

Of course it's with a guy, by now he almost expected as much, although he still tries his best not to think about it. He's staying at Caleb's place while Caleb and Dad hunt a werewolf pack, something that takes a few months.

Dean's been essentially benched – he's been having increasing trouble getting along with Dad ever since Sam left, and the thing that happened (or rather, didn't happen) with Cassie six months ago has made him tense and snappish and mostly drunk.

Dad put his foot down.

Grounded at twenty-three, a truly pathetic feat.

Before he leaves, Caleb presses an envelope in Dean's hand.

"Never tell your father about this," he hisses. "Never."

Dean opens it a few hours later, when he gets bored of losing at FreeCell over and over again.

It's a coupon.

For a Thai massage.

With scented oils.

Dean doesn't think he's laughed this hard since Sam left.

He doesn't actually intend on going for it, but one morning he wakes up and his whole back aches from Caleb's stupid sofa bed, and he figures, what the hell.

Lucky for him, the massage place has an opening that day, so at two o'clock he finds himself face-to-face with an honest to god masseuse, who also happens to be one of the most gorgeous guys Dean has ever seen.

"I'm Matt," he introduces himself, grinning, and then he tells Dean to get naked.

As he lays face-down on the massage table, Dean reflects that his entire life since he was four has been surreal, but he's pretty sure this takes the cake.

Matt takes Dean's foot in his hand and starts moving his fingers, and Dean's glad he showered this morning.

Matt rubs over the arches of his feet, and Dean has to stop himself from jerking away.

"Am I hurting you?" Matt asks.

"Tickles," Dean admits.

Matt laughs

Matt's hands are warm and firm and greasy with massage oil on Dean's back, on his shoulders and legs, but it's not like Dean imagined it would be. It's almost painful, in a weird, relaxing way.

"You're really tense," Matt says.

Dean grunts. "Sleepin' on a sofa bed," he says.

"Mm. That sucks," Matt says. "Watch out, now, I'm gonna start using hot stones."

"Hot _what_?" Dean asks.

"Stones." Matt's hands suddenly feel like fire licking up and down his spine gently, and Dean's muscles clench on instinct.

Matt's hands slow to circular motions around Dean's shoulders. "You've got to relax, otherwise you'll be sore tomorrow."

"Sorry," Dean says.

Matt's hands trail over his neck, down his back on either side of his spine, and Dean makes a conscious effort to relax. It's not actually that hard, and he feels himself slowly melting into the sensations.

No one's ever really taken this much time with Dean's body before.

"God, the music in this place sucks," Dean says, to distract himself from the heat pooling in his belly that has nothing to do with hot rocks or oil. The music is horrible, though, tinkling oriental-sounding crap.

Matt laughs a bit. "I bet you're a BOC fan or something," he says.

"Damn straight," Dean says.

"I don't think they're really conducive to relaxation," Matt points out. "No matter how awesome they are."

Dean shifts a bit, his forehead still pressed into the pillow on the massage table. "How did a guy who's into BOC end up working in a place like this?"

"I was gonna go into physical therapy," Matt says, "but I took a year off college and went to Thailand, and the rest is history. How'd a manly hunk like you end up on my table?"

"Got a coupon from a friend of mine. Caleb. You know him?"

Matt snorts. "Yeah. He's always hitting on all the girls who work here. Could you turn over?"

Dean blushes. He's half-hard, despite all efforts to distract himself. It's been too long and there's a hot guy running hands all over his body.  
Matt's smiling, though, so Dean doesn't feel too embarrassed.

"You're not the first guy to get hard," he says. "You are the cutest, though."

Dean can't help himself. He smiles back.

Matt does some things to his back and shoulders from the new angle, then, but sooner than Dean'd have believed, their session is over.

"Feeling any better?" Matt asks.

"Loads," Dean says, and he's not even lying.

"Planning on coming back?"

"Not really," Dean says. "Not that I didn't like it," he adds hurriedly when he realizes that might be insulting. "It's just not really my scene,  
and—" he stops. Matt is laughing at him.

"I'm glad," he says. "Because I'm not allowed to ask clients out."

Dean's mouth was capable of speech at some point in the not-too-distant past, but it doesn't seem to be working right now.

Matt holds up a business card with his number scrawled on the back and slips it into the pocket of Dean's jeans, folded by the foot of the massage table.

"Call me," he says.

Dean does.

He couldn't _not_.

Matt is ridiculously hot, with dark hair and blue eyes, slim, but definitely strong, and perfectly Dean's type.

Matt's also smart enough to have figured out that Dean's not really the type for romantic candle-lit dinners, and he knows Dean's new in town and sleeping on someone else's couch.

It's a friendly human thing, then, to take him to the bar with the best beer and then offer his own bed to Dean to spare his back and all. It may also have to do with the fact that they haven't been able to stop staring at each other all night.

Dean's not going to go into too much detail, because while Cas would be on board with that, Sam definitely wouldn't, but Dean's not ever going to forget that first night with Matt.

Before long, he finds himself slip-sliding into a relationship with Matt. Dad and Caleb are gone for three months in all, and by the time they come back, Dean hasn't been staying at Caleb's for a month and a half.

He has a bad tendency to fall hard and fast, one of the only traits he has in common with his dad, which in his opinion has more to do with the fact that if he wants to fine people who mean jack shit to him, he has to work fast before he leaves.

He feels like maybe he's making his own life even more depressing, like maybe he wouldn't get hurt if he didn't get close. Dean gets close to people the second he kisses them, though, and he can't make himself stop without dying a little inside.

And there's really no point in doing that to himself.

Falling is easy and, in those first moments, joyful. Dean remembers feeling it the very first time when baby Sammy came home and Dean saw his little tiny hands clenched in mom's sweater. He's never kicked the habit since.

Matt is no exception. He's the very first guy Dean fucks properly, and the first one Dean lets fuck him. He's the first not-Sam guy Dean cooks breakfast for, the first guy he takes out to the movies.

Of course it ends. A few months later, they split, amicably, as these things go. After Cassie, Dean couldn't bring himself to talk about his job. He's always going in and out of Matt's life on hunts, equally relieved and annoyed that Dad's sending him on solos. Matt's a good guy, but he's not built for Dean's kind of life.

Dean hasn't seen him since.

He'll admit that, when Cassie called, he wished it was Matt, instead.

The only noise in the car is the thunder of wind and asphalt all around it. None of the occupants say anything at all.

Dean's finger is tapping against the steering wheel, jaw clenched.

Finally, Sam says, "But you're a homophobe. You've always been a homophobe. I hated that you were a homophobe, I thought…"

"I know what you thought," Dean says. "You remember who taught you the difference between straight and…not straight?"

Sam shakes his head.

"Me," Dean tells him. "You were six, you heard an older kid say the words at school. I…"

Sam is staring blankly at the road. "I don't remember that."

"It wasn't a big deal," Dean says. "I told you sometimes men love men and sometimes women love women, and then I made you watch after-school specials for a month."

"But," Sam starts, then stops, then starts again. "But later, you never sounded like-"

"I know," Dean says. "Look, I explained it to you and let you make up your own mind."

"Then why would you talk shit about gays if you are one?"

Dean pulls off the road and slams down on the brakes abruptly. The Impala protests, but obeys, as she always does. "I'm not gay," he says.

"Well, apparently you are," Sam says.

"No, I'm not. I don't identify with that. I like guys, but I hate…whatever, musical theatre, Lady GaGa and the color pink. I don't fit in there. I've tried."

"Well, then, what are you and why did you lie to me?"

Castiel allows his hand to snake forward and rest gently, unnoticeable on Dean's shoulder.

"I don't know," Dean says after a while. He's staring straight ahead. "No one ever told me it…"

"It?" Sam prompts, still angry and tense.

"No one ever told me it was okay to be into guys," Dean says. "I found out what the difference was when some kid called me a homo and I had to go to the library to figure out what it meant. Dad was…Dad never helped me. I couldn't ask you. How was I supposed to figure out who I was? How was I supposed to tell you the truth when I didn't know what it was, and no one ever told me it was…okay?"

"Oh," Sam says.

It takes him a while, but then he turns to Castiel and asks, "And what about you? Leviticus? Ringing any bells?"

Cas shrugs. "These things are human concepts," he says, "They disguise underlying basics. For myself, I wish there was no such thing as sexual orientation, I wish there was just love. I wish there were no churches or mosques or religions, just faith. I wish there was no such thing as race, just people. I wish humanity would learn that pride and belief in themselves does not mean hatred and intolerance for others."

He pauses, studies the Winchesters. "Moreover," he says, "Dean, it's okay."

Dean turns the key in the ignition a little while after Cas says that, and before long, they're chasing a dull, dust-colored horizon somewhere in the south-west again.

They drive in silence for more than three hours before Sam finally brings himself to say, "Dean? What do you want me to…"

"What can you call me?" Dean asks. "Damn it, Sam."

"Look, I'm just trying to understand," Sam says, and Castiel is relieved to hear the bite has gone out of both their words.

"I don't have a label, Sammy. I'm attracted to men and women, but I prefer relationships with men. It's nobody's business and it doesn't make me part of a subculture, it just makes me me."

"And Cas?"

Dean glances into the backseat, smiles briefly. "Cas is Cas."

Sam rolls his eyes. "Thanks, I got the memo. You're, what, boyfriends?"

Dean shudders comically. "God, no. He's…he's my Cas. That's it."

Castiel smiles to himself. He likes being Dean's. His own growing humanity has taught him that having all the power of an angel can mean next to nothing if you don't understand what it means to relinquish it to someone else, for someone else. If you don't know what it means to love, and perhaps even more importantly, to be loved.

The evening finds them in a motel in Arizona, in separate rooms, because Sam still needs to acclimatize, and now he knows, Dean and Cas might as well get time alone.

Before he turns off the light for sleep, Cas turns on his side, chin propped on his hand, and asks Dean, "Is there a story you still need to tell me?"

Dean smiles at him, sleepy and honest. "Just one," he says.

**Pontiac, Illinois, 2008**

It just about figures that Dean, freshly busted from Hell, ends up sitting in a dingy warehouse covered in weird symbols, kicking his heels against thin air, and waiting for something that may or may not want to kill him.

"You sure you did the ritual right?" He asks Bobby, mainly to say something, because he's never been good with suspense.  
Bobby's glare forces to apologize.

Thankfully, before he can say anything else stupid, the roof starts shaking and the door busts open to admit…

A slim, good-looking guy in a trench and a suit.

All things considered, not exactly what Dean was expecting.

Especially not when he just walks through a rain of bullets like it happens to him every day.

And even more so when the first words out of his mouth are low and growling, contrasting those too-pretty blue eyes that Dean should not be noticing right now.

"I gripped you tight and raised you from Perdition."

Always a well-received gift, but Dean's not stupid enough to believe in good things. They always do come back to bite him in the ass. A gorgeous guy looking at him like this –

No.

"I'm an angel of the Lord." Good, solid reason not to wonder whether his lips feel as chapped as they look.

And then, the guy – Castiel – opens his eyes even freaking wider and asks, "Don't you think you deserve to be saved?"

A part of Dean wants to break down and scream "no". Another part of him wants a hug. A third part is staring into those eyes and wondering if this could be the salvation he's been waiting for.

All of him knows he's in deep, deep shit.

Looking back, he can't decide if he was right or wrong.

At least, he can't decide until Cas clicks off the light and pulls him as close as possible, nuzzling into the spot where Dean's neck and shoulder meet, pressing kisses as he goes, and Dean's so deliriously happy, just for a moment, that he can find it in himself to forget everything else.

**AN:** The title is taken from Girlyman's song Easy Bake Ovens, which is not at all an SPN song, except that I was listening to it on repeat while I wrote parts of this and in a way, it really fits. This was seriously difficult to write, in all ways, and right now, I feel really weird about it. It took forever to write and just…felt kinda off. I think a lot of it stems from the fact that the Dean in my head reacted like this and thinks like this, but I don't really agree with him. It was difficult.


End file.
